Link to Serial Killings Unclear : 2 Victims Called ‘Street People’

Two women whose deaths are under investigation by the Southside Serial Killer Task Force were identified by police Saturday as 22-year-old “street people” from South-Central Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Police Lt. John Zorn, co-leader of the joint police-sheriff’s investigative team, said that unconfirmed reports indicate that Austerberta Alvarez and Canosha Griffin “were often out late at night . . . the hours when most of our crimes have occurred.”

The slayings, Zorn noted, have mostly involved young women out on the streets alone, most of them prostitutes and most of them black.

Zorn was quick to add that neither Alvarez nor Griffin, whose bodies were found on separate South-Central Los Angeles school grounds on Friday, was believed to have a record of prostitution. He also pointed out that while Griffin was black, Alvarez was Latino.

However, without providing details, he said there were several “similarities” between Alvarez’s death and the death of Verna Patricia Williams, 36, whose strangled body was found May 26 on the grounds of the 68th Street Elementary School, about 8 blocks from the school where Alvarez’s body was found. He said Williams’ death has been definitely linked to 15 other murders attributed to the so-called Southside Serial Killer.

Zorn was more hesitant about a link between Griffin’s death and the other killings, saying only that while there were “some general similarities, it’s still up in the air.”

While Griffin’s death is being probed by the task force, the case is still the primary responsibility of the Police Department’s Southeast Division.

Zorn told a news conference outside the Police Department’s Parker Center headquarters Saturday that preliminary autopsy reports from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office indicated that Griffin had been stabbed to death. Griffin’s fully clothed body was found by a summer school student at about 9 a.m. Friday in a vegetable garden at Locke High School.

While the preliminary autopsy report on Alvarez was not available Saturday afternoon, Zorn had said on Friday that her death was probably the combination of stabbing and strangulation that has been the usual modus operandi of the serial killer. Alvarez’s severely beaten and partly clad body was found by a custodian at about 7:45 a.m. Friday on a playground at the 66th Street Elementary School, about five miles from Locke.

The task force supervisor said his investigators still have no idea how Alvarez and her slayer, who apparently killed her at the playground, had gained access to the fenced and locked schoolyard.

The task force has released a composite sketch of the serial killer, depicting a medium complexioned black man, 28 to 35 years of age, about 6 feet tall and weighing 160 to 165 pounds, with black, curly hair, brown eyes and a muscular upper body and arms.

Results of Inquiry

Before Friday’s discoveries, police believed they had definitely linked 16 South-Central Los Angeles murders to the killer, with two other slayings--one in San Dimas and the other in the South-Central area--neither connected nor ruled out.

At noon Saturday, Margaret Prescod, founder of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, resumed her crusade to draw community attention to the murders and what she considers inadequate and inappropriate law enforcement efforts to find the killer.

As she has a number of times in recent months, Prescod set up camp--this time in front of a market at Manchester Avenue and San Pedro Street--to hand passers-by flyers describing the killer in English and in Spanish, while airing her complaints about the investigation to reporters.

She said there are not enough blacks and women among the detectives on the joint task force and she questioned whether the investigators are spending enough time informing the community about the killings and the suspect.

“We know if (the victims) were white women from Santa Monica it would be handled in a different way,” she said.

Asked about Prescod’s criticisms, Zorn responded Saturday that the 49 members of the task force were “selected on the basis of their availability and expertise.” He said the investigative priorities of the task force come ahead of public information work, and he said he supports Prescod’s efforts in informing the community.